Documents detailing nine months of searches and seizures of electronic devices by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents were released on Thursday by the American Civil Liberties Union, offering previously unavailable insight into border searches.Last summer, the Department of Homeland Security released new rules governing searches of laptops and other electronic devices at airports and other border crossings. The rules, regarded as an improvement in terms of clarity, nonetheless continued Bush administration policies giving government agents the right to search electronic devices as if they were suitcases or backpacks, without cause.

In February, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand an appeals court ruling that laptops are like suitcases and can be searched at borders without reasonable suspicion.